


The Scent of an Oncoming Storm

by accol



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, M/M, Non-Penetrative Sex, POV Alternating, Scent Marking, Watersports, background scallison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 06:25:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accol/pseuds/accol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the weeks after Derek becomes alpha, he and Stiles form a reluctant team</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scent of an Oncoming Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Canon divergent post-Season 1 finale. 
> 
> Many thanks to [fangheart](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fangheart), [robotlauren](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lsdme), and [ nomorerippedfuel](http://nomorerippedfuel.tumblr.com) for beta and helpful discussions.

 

Headlights cut in through the splintered window.  They threw Peter’s hulking wolf form into a misshapen shadow at Derek’s feet.  Deformed and grotesque, Peter shouldn’t even be alive.  Not when Laura's ghost -- perfect in the way all boys see their older sisters -- ran through the room chasing a far-away memory of their childhood, right over that darkened, burned patch of floor.  

A fist of emotion squeezed Derek’s heart.  The last thing Laura saw, the last thing she breathed in was Peter's complete and utter betrayal.  Vengeance obliterated his sadness.  Derek’s fingernails cut into the flesh of his palms.  His body begged to go through the change.  One leap and he’d be outside.  Another and he’d be tearing Peter apart.  

Laura was _dead_.  Derek was the only Hale left.  He stepped into that pool of twisted darkness, grinding rubble into the floor like the shadow was the man.  

 _Wildly brave_.  Stiles’ scent was distinct from the others' outside.  It pierced through the chaos, needling its way in just like Stiles always did.  Derek pushed it aside, focusing instead on how he’d tear the meat from Peter’s skeleton and watch the red leave his eyes.  

The yard was suddenly filled with bright firelight and a howl of agony.  Everything was coldly clear to Derek in that moment: pack mattered more than anything else, and Peter had twisted that idea into something unforgivable when he killed Laura. The claws pushed through the ends of Derek's fingers and sliced through Peter’s throat.  

****

“Have you talked to him?  Since the--”  Stiles made a two-fingered slashing motion across his throat.   "And the--"  He waved his hand in all directions over his face, ending with a grr-claw gesture.

Scott sighed and looked across the library to Allison.  “Derek?  No.”  His voice rose at the end of the word like he knew he was supposed to be doing something other than stupidly heart-eying the daughter of the guy who’d sooner kill him than have him over for family dinner.

Stiles rolled his eyes hard enough that it actually hurt.  “You two have been on each other every free second for days.  How is it even possible that you’re not done yet?”

“If Lydia went for you, you’d understand,” Scott said, apparently completely unaware of how douchey that comment was.  To be fair, at this point Stiles was ready to welcome all comers, Lydia or otherwise.  And, yeah, he would love to be temporarily stupid from lack of brain oxygen due to too many orgasms.  Bring it.

Unfortunately, right now Stiles had complete command of his cognitive function.  And unfortunately right now Scott was _sighing_ happily because Allison fluttered her fingertips at him in a supremely barftastic little wave.  

"You are ridiculous."

"What?"  Scott turned and sort of looked through Stiles like he was the Invisible Man before turning back to Allison with his dopey grin firmly in place.  

"You are also useless.  Fine.  I'll do it, but I'm sending you the bill if I sustain permanent damage to mind, body, or Jeep."  Stiles grabbed his backpack and pushed away from the table.  "Text me when you emerge from your sex fog."

Stiles had _tried_ ignoring Derek until he went away with all of his werewolf baggage.  It had worked exactly as well as Stiles should have guessed it would work, which is to say not at all.  Because you try ignoring Derek Hale or his baggage when said baggage keeps fucking Beacon Hills up.  But Stiles could turn over a new leaf, try a little werewolf reverse psychology.  Get right up in there with something a little more proactive.  A bit of mutual helpage where Stiles scratches Derek’s back (or behind his ears, or not) and then Derek doesn’t tear Stiles or the town limb-from-limb in a haze of moon-induced alpha rage.

Stiles just hoped this wasn’t the stupidest idea in the known universe.  He'd only met one alpha and look how well that'd gone.

****

After Peter was dead, the burned out shell of the house was still just a shell, and so was Derek.  

He stood in the ruins of his parents’ office.  Derek was the only one left that knew this place.  Memories prickled behind his eyelids.  His parents reading together on the couch with Mom’s feet tucked under his dad’s thigh, helping Cora paste together popsicle sticks into some school project, in a heated discussion with others of their kind.  Ghosts of rune-filled maps darkened the walls.  Derek could still feel the thick fabric curtains that used to hang in the windows. He’d played Wolves and Hunters with Laura and their cousins and had hidden behind them so many times.  

Derek had watched his mother from this doorway, quietly guiding their pack.  It looked effortless.  She never let her alpha to the surface -- no claws, no fangs, no violence -- but everyone fell in line behind her leadership.  When she’d caught Derek listening in, she’d gently said he wasn’t ready yet, he’d have his time eventually but not tonight.  She'd stretched up on her toes to put a kiss on the top of his head. That was a week before the fire.  

Now Derek was the alpha of the Hale pack with no one to lead and no one to follow.  It pressed on every inch of his skin from the inside out like it wanted nothing more than to consume him.  Insanity could take him during his first full moon until he was bloodied, and it would never be just his own blood when the claws retracted.  That was one thing he had gleaned as a curious kid hiding behind those curtains: not all werewolves survive the ferocity of the alpha change without it tearing their mind to shreds.

Right now Derek understood the cautionary whispers he'd overheard.  He felt sixteen all over again, raw emotion amplified to 11 and barely reined in.  

 _Stiles._  Derek could scent him from a mile off -- always the smell of the clutch slipping on his Jeep, lacrosse locker room, fries, and that wild bravery -- and here he was, traipsing up onto Derek’s porch uninvited.

“So...yeah, hi,” Stiles said with his hands jammed into his pockets, nonthreatening and familiar but aspecifically annoying as hell.  

Derek wanted to pace, to stalk off this sudden, vibrating energy to do something.  Maybe he'd feel more at ease if he picked Stiles up and chucked him bodily back toward his Jeep.  “What do you want?”

“More like, what do _you_ want?  Or, like, _need_.”  

Derek felt his heartbeat in his _teeth_.  

Stiles carried on as if he hadn’t just made it sound like he was here for some kind of poorly timed pity fuck.  “We need to find out what’s up now that you’re all alphaed out.”  He made as though he was going to poke Derek’s pec and then thought better of it, tucking the offending hand into his armpit.  “Right now Scott is useless and unavailable.  That leaves me to get all Shaggy to your Scooby and see what your deal is.”

Derek stared motionlessly, deciding whether he should growl out _no_ or go with the chucking thing.  Three seconds ticked by, four, five.  Stiles, as he was apt to do, filled the silence.

“And, of course, you are going to make this feel like a _bend over and cough_.  Great.  So, I don’t know,” Stiles threw up his hands like he was the exasperated one.  “What do alpha werewolves do when they’re not all insane like dear ol’ Uncle Peter?  Like, have you had the urge to piss a circle around this place to keep the other baddies away?  À la _Never Cry Wolf_?  Seen that one?  Where the dude goes to Alaska--”

Stiles looked around the rubble of the Hale house like he’d just decided on a career in construction and this was going to be his first guinea pig of a building site.  He stopped mid-sentence when his eyes finally landed on Derek’s face.  Then his heartrate ramped up until most people would have hyperventilated; Stiles was red-cheeked but impressively and disappointingly upright.  Derek took it as a sign that Stiles recognized his own foot-in-mouth disorder.

The combination of Stiles and Google was a menace.  The idea of territorial behavior was probably off of a site with pentagrams in the background and wolf howl audio effects.  Derek’s immediate instinct was to be annoyed, but the alpha inside of him surged hard enough for Derek’s teeth to lengthen.  He’d never felt the need as a beta, but now the mention of marking had a rumbling growl emerging from his throat.  

“Ok then, big guy,” Stiles said, holding up his hands in a motion of surrender.  “Let’s just act like I know how to keep my mouth shut instead of letting stuff like that dribble out of it.”  

****

Derek stared at the water-stained remains of his ceiling that night with _big guy_ rattling around his head.  He grimaced.  Everything Stiles did -- twitching, running off at the mouth, snarking, even _breathing_ \-- got under Derek’s skin.  Stiles had a point though.  Derek definitely needed to figure this out, how to live alone as an alpha and an omega when he didn’t know how to do either.  The full moon was less than three weeks away and Derek had no idea how to keep himself on the right side of sane.

 _Big guy_.  This time Derek could see Stiles’ mouth wrapping casually around the offending words, that spicy scent of bravery spiking when he said it.  Derek’s wolf pressed within him, restless.

He grimaced again.  Learning how to live as an alpha was the only thing -- the _only_ one -- on Derek’s list of things to do.  

****

Amazingly -- like, truly mind-blowingly -- Beacon Hills won a lacrosse match.  Stiles' hand was up to high five Scott, and it just hung there when Scott ran for the stands and Allison's waiting hug.  Oh, and her kiss.  With aggressive levels of tongue.  Holy-- get a room.

Stiles' hand dropped limply to his side.  The rest of the team was piling into cars to head for burgers but Stiles' appetite had evaporated.  Dad was working late.  Maybe he could stop by the police station and say what’s up, snoop a little at the files when no one was looking.

But no.  Of course not.  Matters had officially been made worse.  Derek _had_ to be standing at the edge of the woods with that look on his face.  The one that said _now or pain, your choice_.

****

Peter was insane.  Cold and sociopathic, and he'd been that way for as long as Derek could remember.  A decade ago, when Peter had come home from the hunt with too much blood on him for the rabbit clenched in his fist, Derek had known.  Even as a kid, Derek had seen it simmering beneath Peter's skin.  But he was family; he was pack, and Derek had trusted him despite the signs.

Was that in him now too?  Had that darkness infected him when he'd taken the alpha powers from Peter?

Stiles quickly looked away when Derek lifted his eyes.  He smelled nervous, and Derek wondered if he sensed something wrong inside him.

****

“Hey,” Scott said, Allison-induced lazy smile plastered on his face.  He shook his head slightly like he was trying to clear his mind and failing.

“Yeah.  Hey.  How’s your dick?  Satisfied yet?  Good to go?”  Stiles didn’t look away from his laptop screen.  He was delving into research on moon cycles and associated paranormal activity in case all of their asses needed saving in short order.  He was definitely not getting any dick-related satisfaction, and he knew he was giving Scott a steaming heap of jealousy right now.

To make things worse, Stiles had done a dumb thing.  A very dumb, dick-related thing that would probably result in a painful death.  Teenage hormones cannot be caged.   Sadly. Because he might have had [that scene](http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/222816/Never-Cry-Wolf-Movie-Clip-Territorial-Dispute.html) from _Never Cry Wolf_ open in another tab.  For research.  Research was a completely valid reason.  It totally added legitimacy to the thoughts Stiles was _definitely not having_ while crossing his legs tightly.  Research on werewolf marking habits was a not-questionable-in-any-way reason to think about cocks.  

 _Shit._  Stiles was definitely thinking dick-related thoughts about Derek Hale’s cock.  He would rather not be thinking about Derek's anything.  This whole deal was supposed to be Stiles figuring out how to avoid dying.  It was not about getting any information, fantasies, or ideas about what Derek had in his pants.

He probably had a lot in his pants, though.

And now Stiles felt like he was going to jump out of his skin, dick first.  Preferably into a giant vat of ice water.

“I'm good to go for at least an hour.  Probably,” Scott replied.  Smug, oversexed bastard.  “How ‘bout you?  Did you ever talk to Derek?”

Stiles clenched his jaw.  “Yes, twice, against my better judgment.  And I made it out unscathed both times, no thanks to you.  He definitely doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing as alpha, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Oh.  Huh.  I wonder if Allison’s dad knows anything about alphas.”  Scott’s voice had that dreamy quality again and Stiles looked up from his keyboard.

“That is a good idea, especially considering your brain has relocated several feet south.”  Stiles was fully aware he may be the black pot in this conversation considering the implications of the browser window burning a hole completely through his brain until it became the ashes of his dignity.  He cleared his throat.  “You should see if they have some kind of records.  Just try not to get shot with your hand in his sock drawer.  Or in Allison’s anything.”

“Yeah, Allison.”  Scott drifted off again, in his fantasyland where Argents were made out of My Little Ponies instead of assault weapons.

****

After the fire, Derek had read the few books left in his mom's library.  None of them said a single thing about werewolves.  The closest were a charred copy of _Beowulf_ and a decade-old copy of the _Farmer’s Almanac_ with a corner folded down on the page with the lunar calendar.  All of the family records had been downstairs, turned to ash when the fire gutted the basement.  Laura always suspected there were some protected books, some ancient records in a safe somewhere.  But the fire came before either of them had been read into the family’s deepest secrets.  Everyone who might know how Derek was supposed to function as a new alpha, all of them were dead and gone.  He was left with an aching emptiness and a vague feeling that the secrets that'd solve everything were almost near enough to touch.

It had come so naturally to Laura, just like Mom.  She’d hunted tirelessly while they were away from Beacon Hills, running from the hunters and trying to circle back on them to find out who’d set the fire.  She sent Derek back to Beacon Hills a few times to scour the house for shreds of that former life: their mom’s journal, a picture of him and his dad with his 2nd grade baseball team, _anything_.   But it was all gone and he had nothing to go on but instinct and Stiles' incessant questions about what felt like the right path through the dark.

When Stiles had flippantly suggested marking territory, Derek spent two sleepless, barely anchored nights roaming the woods around the house.  The only thing that felt anywhere close to right was pushing Stiles into his Camaro, lacrosse stick still in hand and the warm scent of sweat surrounding him.  He could ignore Stiles' sniping and pouting.

That was why Derek was presently sitting against the wall, watching Stiles hunt down whatever scraps of lore he could dig up online.  For the fourth time in a week.

“Shut _up_ ,” Stiles said, running a hand down over his face and interrupting Derek’s thoughts.  Stiles’ laptop screen was the only light in the room and it threw his profile into sharp relief.  “I can feel you staring at me, and unless you have some good ideas, just shut up with the staring.  I can’t focus.”

Derek rolled his eyes and blew a breath out of his nose as he got up.  He returned a few minutes later with a can of Coke from the cooler of food he had stashed in the old kitchen.  He slid his fingertip under the tab, opening it with a hiss and a spray of condensation across Stiles’ half-asleep face.  

“To help you _focus_ ,” Derek said gruffly, pushing the can into Stiles’ hand.

“Hey, don’t get pissed at me, Wolfy McWolferstein.  Actual wolf pack behavior stuff is the only starting point we have here, so you can put away your rageface and let me dive deeper into this.  And, thanks,” Stiles said, lifting the soda can slightly.  

Stiles weirdly laid his tongue over his lower lip for a fraction of a second before he dumped half the soda down his throat, adam’s apple bouncing.  Air sucked past his teeth when he finally stopped, gasping for breath against the acidity and cold.  The whole display was simultaneously grotesque and disturbingly fascinating.  

Derek leaned against the wall, in the shadows, and watched Stiles crack his knuckles and dive back into the search.  Past the sickeningly sweet scent of the soda, Stiles smelled determined.  And warm.  

“Come on, baby.  Show me your secrets,” Stiles mumbled to the laptop.  “Coke always makes me need to piss, so let’s get something figured out here before I have to take a leak.”

The back of Derek’s head rested against the wall.  He watched Stiles work from beneath half-lidded eyes.   

****

Derek moved altogether too quietly for Stiles' taste.  All sorts of sneaky pacing kept throwing him into Stiles' peripheral vision.  It probably wouldn't have been a problem except his shirt was way, _way_ too tight.  Like Derek had found a Goodwill box of clothes in the closet from when he was a preteen, before he sprouted muscles and facial hair and--

Stiles realized he was staring.  His mouth snapped closed and he aggressively hit his mouse button.  Cease and desist with any and all dick-related mental imagery stat.

He had seventeen years of experience not getting laid, making him something of an expert.  But Derek Hale doing his... _existing_ was making Stiles lose his ability to function.  It didn’t help that _The Cock Research Tab_ (as Stiles’ brain had chosen to dub it despite Stiles’ best efforts) was still open in the background.  The soda had worked its way through Stiles’ system and he felt like squirming.

****

“You need to get a real house.  Or at least real indoor plumbing,” Stiles grumbled, zipping his jeans as he walked back inside.  “It’s dark out there and I just about face-planted into a tree with my dick in my hand.  Someday I’d like to have the opportunity to use that particular piece of anatomy as it was intended.”

Stiles pulled up short, hand still hovering over his groin and eyes wide.

“Again with the things that should stay inside my head,” Stiles said.  He shuffled back to his chair and hunched over the computer.

Before Derek knew what he was doing, he took a deep, slow intake of breath into his lungs.  He could smell Stiles’ heated cheeks.  Derek’s saliva flowed involuntarily beneath his tongue.

****

Stiles wished he had some pins or something.  Drawing on this map was a freakin’ nightmare.  Especially because Derek was keeping this place like a haunted house, all mood lighting and peeling paint.  Plus, the house creaked every time the wind even thought about blowing.  It sounded like it was breathing.

He jabbed the tip of his pencil through the paper, finally giving in to the inevitable conclusion that this was the easiest way to track these crimes.  Everything was starting to point toward--

“What did you and Laura do when you left Beacon Hills?”

It was out of his mouth before he could reel it back in.   _Fuck.  Goodbye world, this was a good life so please let Derek dismember me in the gentlest way possible._

But then Derek did something that Stiles had no idea was actually possible.  He answered.

“At first we ran.”  Derek looked at his hands and then out the dark window.  “Laura had a penpal.  This girl from another family... another pack.  We went there for a while, but it felt too much like putting them in danger.  If the hunters were tracking us, they’d  eventually find them too.”

Stiles stopped breathing just in case Derek would revert to talking in monosyllabic grunts.   

“Most of the first year is a blur.  After that, we found a place.  Just a little cabin.  It was up in a ski valley.  We got for-cash jobs at the resort.  I fixed the lifts, taught myself enough about plumbing that they had me expand one of the lodges.  But we always were going to come back, try to pick up the trail when we were a little older.  A little stronger.”

Derek looked up at Stiles and the map.  Stiles nodded silently to show that he understood.

****

At dawn, Stiles passed out across his keyboard.  They’d made exactly zero progress, except for Stiles finding a loose pattern of crime along interstate highways following full moons.  In the last weeks, the crime rate had increased and had veered toward Beacon Hills.

The chewed stub of a yellow pencil slipped out from behind Stiles’ ear and made a soft noise as it hit the floor.  A few hours ago, he’d slapped a map on the wall in the old shadow of the ones that had hung there before.  He’d held the pencil between his teeth, gritting them hard as he pushed a thumbtack and a safety pin into the plaster.  Derek had strongly considered protesting that that particular wall was sacred in some way; his mother had strategized right _there_.  But Stiles was already scrawling notes across the paper.  The point of the pencil poked through.  The graphite would never stand out against the dirty wall, though, and Stiles was on a kinetic tear through logic.  Point after point was marked, and Derek never ended up complaining about Stiles taking over that spot for the night.  

The pencil rolled across the floor until it met the toe of Derek’s boot.  Stiles shifted in his sleep, his lips curving into a smile and then into a scowl before softening into deeper sleep again.  Even while he slept, Stiles’ emotions oozed from him in a jumble of scents that Derek had yet to tease apart.  Just like his waking personality, Stiles asleep smelled like an overactive storm with lightning bolts of eagerness coming through on occasion.  

Derek crouched next to him and watched him breathe.  His heartbeat was slow and steady and persistent.  Stiles was so fucking _persistent_.  From day one, he’d inserted himself right into the middle of all this like that was the only place he could possibly be.  And from day one, he’d carried Scott’s scent, but that was fading.  

Derek’s eyebrows pulled together and he quickly stood.  If Stiles’ map was right,  something was heading this way.  The timing couldn’t have been worse.  He wasn’t ready.  All he had was Stiles -- human and exhausted -- in a house that was more shack than pack fortress.  But at least this place was _his_ , and Derek needed to do what he could to prove that to whatever was coming.   

So, despite himself, Derek was about to admit that Stiles might be right about more than the map.  

He moved silently through the trees circling the house, splashing them with urine.  Stiles had been right about this: the compulsion was so very real to mark, to scent, to claim.  Everything inside this ring was Derek’s.  All challengers would know that they were crossing into the _alpha’s_ territory.

Inside the house, Stiles sighed in his sleep.  

_Everything inside this circle is mine._

The ache of Derek’s bladder eased, but the weight of his cock increased until it sat heavily in his palm as the last warm drops fell.  He’d known this tree would be out here in the gray light.  He’d tried to ignore it but deep down he knew he was intentionally keeping it for last.  Half avoiding it, half savoring the fact that it was waiting for him.

_Claim._

The final tree was covered with Stiles’ scent.  Derek tried to not think about him here -- persistent, disruptive, vulnerable -- cock in hand in the darkness.  But Derek’s nostrils flared, taking in the warmth, the sweetness, the musk.  The swirl of everything _Stiles_ reddened Derek’s field of view.

 _Leaning forward, pants at his knees, hand braced on the trunk, looking back over his shoulder as Derek approached._  

A hard squeeze was all that kept Derek from groaning at the thought of Stiles’ pale, freckled skin.  

_Stiles on his knees at the base of this tree.  Lips open, tongue across the bottom one, full and red and waiting for Derek to mark him.  Daring him with those amber eyes to mark him._

Derek’s breath huffed hard through his nostrils as he ran his hand down his length and circled the head of his dick.  The thin wetness of urine still remained in the slit and coated the pad of his thumb.  

_Thumb swiping across Stiles’ full lower lip.  Stiles’ eagerness.  His smart tongue forming a point and tasting from the tip’s hole._

Bark scraped at Derek’s forehead as he leaned against the marked tree and palmed himself, hips driving his cock into his fist.  Desperation laced his movements.  Anger about everything.  Anger about Stiles simply existing, because all Derek wanted was his hand to be Stiles’ wet mouth.  Those eyes -- wide, smug, scared, too deep -- looking up at him as Derek took him.

_Need to claim, to mark._

The scent of himself -- piss and sex -- mixing with Stiles’ pushed the red to Derek’s eyes.  His orgasm tore through him, brutal in its suddenness and the tree was doubly marked.

****

“Do you think that we should, like, find some other place for Derek to stay?”

Allison was draped over Scott’s lap, eating french fries off his plate in a one-for-me-one-for-you fashion.  “What do you mean?” she asked.  Then she kissed some ketchup off of Scott’s lips.  

Who even liked ketchup?  Curly fries were sacred things, and Scott's condiment excursion here was nearing fry blasphemy.  Stiles wondered impatiently whether the bro code required some sort of intervention.  He also wondered if Derek liked french fries.  The straight ones or the curly ones.  Stiles definitely hoped he was a fan of the curly ones.  His brain helpfully commented, "if you know what I mean."

Allison and Scott were somehow both staring at him like "I have been giving considerable thought to werewolf marking habits as they may pertain to my personal self" was emblazoned on his face.  It must have been obvious if they'd taken a break from fluffy sex land to squint at him.

Stiles cleared his throat.  “I _mean_ , all his family is gone.  Wolves need packs.  What happens when some monster-of-the-week shows up?  I found--”

"Dude," Scott interrupted.  “I don’t have a pack and I’m fine.  Why are you being nice to him?  Is it intentional?” Scott reentered the haze and didn’t bother looking over at Stiles.  That was fortunate because Stiles was sure he was the color of those poor, sacrificed tomatoes.

He sputtered, “I just mean we should get him on our side if he’s going to be the alpha.  Unless you’re interested in a superpowered werewolf enemy.”

“Been there,” Allison shrugged.

“And again, I’m alone on this,” Stiles said effectively to himself.

Later, alone and fry-less, he realized he hadn't told them about the map.

****

Derek prowled through the woods for hours past sundown.  His skin dripped sweat as he ran.  His life depended on this, so he leapt further, went faster until the physicality started to clear his mind.  Deep inside, he felt for the changing core of himself and only found the flexing, shaking wolf he’d caged there.

There was no way he’d let himself change now.  If it all went wrong, the consequences would be too huge.  But out here, under the night sky, maybe control was within reach.  This was where the pack had run together, his mom in the lead.  Tonight, his senses were keener than they’d ever been.  His body was stronger, and he ran hard through the damp air and its familiar scents: white-tailed deer, last year’s leaves decaying on the forest floor, the occasional human when he edged toward the National Park boundary.  

The rock of the overlook was under Derek’s feet when he finally crouched.  It was nearing moonrise, and he’d been out here searching for something he couldn’t even name for hours.  This was the edge of his world.  Falling into the insanity of a failed alpha was right here, and Derek could almost see the fine line he was running along.  The wolf inside wanted to force the pieces into place but Derek didn't know how.

A hint of something foreign on the air caught his attention.  Sour and stinking of unwashed skin, Derek followed wisps of it back into the woods.  He released his wolf just enough to lead him, dissecting the smell until it reeked of danger and threat.    

The trail wound circuitously until Derek looked past the last ring of trees at his house.  Anger and dread settled heavily on his shoulders.  Someone, something had been here at the edge of his family’s home, the territory he’d marked.  His wolf growled low in his chest, and Derek followed its lead back to their tree.

His fangs forced painfully through his gums, the change coming before Derek could rein it in, because here was where the foreign stench was strongest.  

Every muscle tensed and Derek leapt for the porch.  Inside the house smelled only of Stiles.  The floor against the wall -- the place where Derek always sat to watch Stiles work -- was still warm with Stiles' bodyheat.  Derek could see their tree from here... like someone had leaned against it and watched the pale glow of Stiles' laptop.  Derek bristled.  

Where is he?

Derek grabbed his phone from his pocket, and it blinked in the darkness.  

 _from: Stiles Stilinski_  
>>  waited for you.  thought we were researching tonight  
>>  ate your granola bars as punishment for ditching me    
>>  srsly?  luna bars?    
>>  ….............get more though.  apparently folic acid tastes good  
>>  sleeping now.  my warm bed is better than your shitty floor

Derek opened the window and howled.

****

“Yo, come here _now_ ,” Stiles hissed into his phone.

“I’m kind of... busy,” Scott sort of… giggled?  

“I can’t believe you answered the phone,” Allison said in the background.  “You are so getting punished.”

Stiles cringed, “Oh, god.  You aren’t-- yes, yes, you are.”  

Stiles shoved his phone back into his pocket and peered at the crime scene from behind a tree.  Every detail of it fit exactly: abandoned car, empty except for a metric ass-ton of blood, scrapes along the door like claw marks.  Stiles mentally gulped.  Whatever the hell this thing was, now it was undeniably on their front step.

Sheriff Stilinski was peering into the blood-soaked car with a flashlight.  Stiles reached for his phone to call (unbelievably) the more reliable of the two werewolves he knew--

“What do you think?”  Derek’s voice came from about half a millimeter behind Stiles’ ear.

Stiles clocked his forehead against the tree in a startled spasm.  He stumbled out from behind the tree ready to yell obscenities because that frickin’ hurt.

“For crying out loud,” Derek mumbled.  He grabbed Stiles before he could draw attention to them and shoved him back-first against the tree.  The sheriff’s flashlight lit a bright stripe of ground where Stiles had just been flailing.  “Shut up.”

“Me shut up?   _You_ shut up.  You’re the one that sneaks up on people like a freakin’ wet nightmare.”  He rubbed his forehead as he mumbled the last.  

Derek rolled his eyes and pressed closer, looking over Stiles’ shoulder and past the tree to watch the police scene.  “What did you find out?”

"Not really into personal space, are you?  Good.  Fine.  Looks like the same kind of thing that’s been coming across the mountain highways.  Same kind of car, same markings.”  Stiles gulped, half because Beacon Hills had a terrifying new arrival and half because who has muscles like this and why do they have to be pressed against him while he's trying to speak in full sentences?   “Same _Shining_ -levels of gore.  Smell anything?”

From this close, all Stiles’ human nose could smell was Derek.  The scent caught at the back of Stiles’ throat and lit a fuse that made all his nerve endings explode into tingling warmth.  It was the way the house smelled, minus the moss and the damp.  Hell if Stiles knew why Derek smelled so good.  But it gave him the urge to literally eat him... or maybe roll on him.  Or something involving both of those things and sex.  

He eyerolled at himself.  Seriously, his body was going to need to learn to find better times to wake up and get going.  Between the beam of his dad’s flashlight and 190 pounds of sourwolf Superman, Stiles was in a -- ahem -- hard place.

Derek really needed to step away soon.  Stiles tried biting the inside of his lip and breathing very, very slowly.

****

Derek put a box of granola bars and a soda in front of Stiles.  Then he pulled another chair over and watched Stiles try to organize the sparse information he’d found.  Stiles scribbled notes on scraps of paper -- once on the inside of a granola bar wrapper after licking his fingers -- and put them in piles before huffing out a hard breath and reorganizing them.  He scratched his fingernails through his short hair and cursed creatively enough to make the corners of Derek’s mouth begin to turn up.

“Fuck,” Stiles finally yelled, sitting back in his chair and scowling at the desk.  “I can’t make it come together.”

Derek leaned forward instead, taking his turn with the shuffling.  Despite the frustration rolling off of Stiles in waves, this felt like a bigger piece sliding into its proper place.  They were on the verge of learning something.

He reached back and grabbed a handful of Stiles’ shirt, pulling him back to the table.  

****

All Stiles had said was that his dad was working night shifts because of the murder and maybe Derek should hide out at his house.  Instead of here, where the Argents knew to look for him.  Because it would royally suck if they made him into some kind of were-kebab.  And who knows what’s going on with those ooey gooey blood extravaganzas. Two heads are better than one for research even if all Derek does is scowl.

And then Derek had to freakin’ lean over and sniff him.

Why did he have to _do_ that?  

Stiles had been fairly comfortable in his sexuality revolving around actual humans until Derek Hale arrived on the scene.  No longer, apparently.  Now Stiles was twitching uncomfortably in his jeans with that long, drawn out inhale against the side of his neck.  

Really, this was all due to research.  Stiles was basically the cat who curiosity killed because he went and did some Googling.  After weeks, that tab was still open in his browser even if Stiles was avoiding it.  Or, more like, he was trying to avoid it and failing.  At least he tried to sort of mix it up by interspersing it with viewings of gay porn.  Because Stiles was sure there was some logical argument somewhere out there in the great, wide world that said those two things mutually destroyed each other.  

And then all of it went straight to his dick in a surge of gay werewolf marking porn when Derek smelled the side of his neck.  

“Um,” Stiles squeaked.  “Forgot homework.  Practice, I mean.  Lacrosse... it’s a thing.  That I do.” 

Popping wood in front of a dude who could literally tear him in half on a whim was basically the worst plan in Stiles’ history of poorly conceived plans.  He grabbed his backpack and was halfway back to town before he remembered to breathe actual air.  Tires squealed when he turned into his driveway.  He didn’t even bother to close the Jeep’s door all the way, running inside and up the stairs two at a time.  

Goddamn Derek and the way that he made Stiles palm himself in the bathroom with the lights off, trying to hold his whines in behind his bitten lip.  Fuck Derek and his wolfish need to do things like sniff and red eye and probably mark his territory.  

_Oh.  Fucking holy shit.  Stiles hoped to fuck that Derek marked his territory._

Stiles’ hand moved as fast as he could make it go along his cock.  The tiled wall of the tub was cold against his forehead behind the shower curtain like that did some good to hide him.  

This was just a hormones thing.  This was just Stiles having to watch Scott and Allison grind on each other with french fries.  This wasn’t anything about Derek specifically--

His groan echoed in the small room.   _Yes, fuck, but what if._  What if Derek marked him?  What _if_?  Maybe because he’s been good with the research.  Because he’s useful.  Maybe because Derek wants him.  Like, in particular.  As a person, Stiles is the one that’s wanted.  By another person.  Er, werewolf.

Stiles did not squeak or make any noise at all thank you very much when he came over his fist in the dark.  

****

Derek slid the window open almost silently.  Stiles was sprawled across a twin bed that was too small for his long limbs.  His sheet was pulled across the lower half of his body, but otherwise he was naked.  His lips had fallen open, and the ball of one foot was brushing the floor.  

Undeniably he smelled like orgasm.

Derek’s wolf flexed within him, drinking in the scent.  The urge to slide over Stiles, to rub against him until all he smelled of was Derek, was almost overpowering.  He exhaled hard through his nostrils, keeping what dignity he could while watching a guy sleep.  Stiles had given him an invitation, but probably not for exactly this.

Stiles’ red hoodie was draped over the back of the chair.  Derek rolled it into a ball and laid down with it as a pillow.  It smelled intensely like Stiles, thankfully drowning out the tempting scent of spunk.  Derek rubbed his cheek against the fabric and the scent rose with the warmth of his skin against it.  Not more than three feet away, Stiles twitched in his sleep.  Derek wondered what he’d do if Stiles rolled over and the sheet slid off of him.  

This had been a bad idea.

Derek turned face down into the sweatshirt.  He kept his hands far away from his dick, distracting himself with thoughts of fixing his family’s house back up after they dealt with whatever had killed those people.

****

“Because of course this would happen here,” Stiles grumbled.  

The Jeep’s lights flashed feebly a few times and then went out completely as it coasted to a stop.  Stiles cursed Derek for living in a p.o.s. house down a p.o.s. road with a cell phone dead spot the size of the state of Georgia.  He popped the hood like he knew what he was going to find under there.  If 10% of the info on werewolves he had in his brain was about engines, that would  be peachy right about now.

“Problem?” a gravelly voice asked from out of nowhere.

Stiles startled.  The clouds slid away from the face of an almost full moon and cast them into an eerily bright light for a few seconds.  Leaning against the front fender was a man with dark, stringy hair and a wide smile that made Stiles shiver involuntarily.  And holy christ, he _stank_.  But it was the man’s eyes that were the really freaky part.  Too wide and way too shiny.

“Yeah, no.  I mean, yes, but I’m good.  It’s all good.”

“Hm,” he said, throwing an arm around Stiles’ shoulder and looking into the darkness of the engine compartment.  “All good, is it?  No way at all that I could help _fix you_?”

Stiles found himself pressed hard up against a too-warm body with a too-strong arm around him.  He stiffened.  Those crimes, the ones he’d found when he’d combed through the newspapers (and those conveniently pilfered reports from the police station).  They’d been mostly break-ins on abandoned vehicles... and attacks on stranded motorists.  

“Definitely a-ok around here.  I’ll just be going then,” Stiles said too loudly.  

“Is that right?”  The man’s eyes flashed in the moonlight before clouds obscured the light again, throwing them into near total darkness.  He leaned forward slightly, and Stiles was sure that he heard the guy sniff.  “I very much hope we see each other again, Stiles.”

Stiles blanched in the dark, already walking away way too fast for it to be subtle. He hadn’t told him his name.

****

“Why do you smell like--?” Derek was on him before he was even across the threshold, one huge hand in Stiles’ shirt.

Stiles’ back thudded against the wall.  “Like _eau du skeezy stranger_?  Because my car broke down on the other side of the hill and some guy tried to get all up in my space.  I hate that you live way the hell out--”

“Quiet,” Derek hissed.  

Derek pressed close, one hand curling around Stiles’ hip to hold him still.  For once, Stiles took the hint and stood motionless.  He even held his breath.  The only thing moving the air between them was Stiles’ rapid heartbeat.  Derek kept his face a careful distance from Stiles’ skin while he breathed him in.  Cold fear seeped from Stiles under the musky, sour presence of another werewolf.  The same scent was smeared against their tree.  It’d been faded when Derek had found it, at least an hour old, but this was fresh and unmistakably wolf.  Now, with his face a fraction of an inch from Stiles’ warm neck, Derek felt an almost overwhelming compulsion to obliterate the foreign scent.

“An omega,” he exhaled raggedly.  He let himself drag his lips along the soft flesh of Stiles’ neck.  The smell of Stiles curled over Derek’s tongue.  “I smelled him here the night you were here by yourself.”

“Oh, you mean the night that you ditched me to skip through the meadow and collect wildflowers?  And also that you didn’t tell me that something -- very possibly related to the map -- was in the back yard?  Seriously, Derek, what the actual _fuck_?”  

“It could have been nothing.”

Stiles rolled his eyes.  “Please.  When does anything like this ever turn out to be nothing in Beacon Hills?”  Weirdly, fondness burst out of Stiles’ for a second, coloring his scent into something that felt like it belonged here.  And then Stiles picked up the program again.  “Wait.  Those killings -- it was another werewolf?  Shit,” Stiles exclaimed.  His hands pulled at the sides of Derek’s shirt.  “He’s here for you?  The alpha thing?  You have to get out of here.  We’ll hide you somewhere.”

“No,” Derek snapped.  “I’m not running.”

“Be a stubborn asshole, like always.  One of these times--”

A voice came from outside the house, cutting razor-sharp through the night air.  “I hear there’s a new alpha. I thought I would come pay a visit.”  The unspoken threat dripped from the words.  

Derek didn’t know why the omega wasn’t coming closer than the circle of his scent out there.  It wasn’t magic, just a warning, but it was apparently enough for now.  Stiles didn’t even know it was there, that Derek had taken his joking comment to heart.  The werewolf outside knew it though.  He would have smelled both Derek and Stiles out there, one overlapping the other.  He would have smelled Derek’s come covering Stiles’ scent.   

“Why isn’t he coming closer?”  Stiles whispered close to Derek’s ear, like he was a mind reader.  His body had stilled again, and he was letting Derek keep him pressed to the wall.

The omega spoke again.  “Is that human all you have as pack?  Tsk tsk.  Not much of an alpha are you?”

Derek pressed his body harder against Stiles’.  He could feel every one of Stiles’ rapid heartbeats.  Stiles’ stuttered exhale caught the hair along Derek’s neck.  

“Maybe I should make him mine.  I do so want a pack.  Mine is all dead, and the full moon is so soon,” he taunted.  

Derek’s rumbling growl shook them both.  The thought of this werewolf’s bloodied claws anywhere near Stiles took Derek to the painful edge of turning.  He inhaled from Stiles’ neck, panting hot air through his clenched teeth as he held back.  

Stiles was coiling, all tensed, wiry muscles beneath Derek’s hands.  “I’ve got a fucking tire iron with his name on it.  Let me--”   _Wild bravery_.  

Derek covered Stiles’ mouth with the palm of his hand and listened past Stiles’ fiercely annoyed snort of air.  

For a werewolf’s ears only, the omega whispered.  “I could make him drown in the feel of me.  Leave him gasping for air under my influence.  Every inch of his skin covered by _me_.  What do you think of that?  Should I make his blood flood out of him into a worthless pool or should I give him the bite?”  

Stiles eyes widened with alarm at the sight of Derek’s descending fangs.  Scrabbling hands pulled him closer in some kind of fucked up effort to keep his alpha under control.  Wetness spread over Derek’s palm as Stiles licked it, trying to get him to let up.  

The taunting whisper came again.  “I will be back, Derek.  Don’t doubt it.  The Hale line has always been a powerful one and I think I’d like that power as _mine_.  Starting with your pack.  That one so clearly wants to be claimed by a wolf.”

They waited in tense silence.  Stiles finally relaxed under the pressure of Derek’s body.  His fingers rubbed awkward circles into Derek’s sides, warming his skin and pulling him back from the verge.  

“Derek,” Stiles said, muffled beneath Derek’s hand.  

Derek scowled.  

Something sounding like “come on” came from behind his palm.  Then Stiles’ blunt teeth were raking across his skin in an attempt to bite, but there was no malice there.  

“He’s gone,” Derek finally said.  He released his hand but continued to hover protectively over Stiles.  

“I have a plan.  You are not going to like it.”

****

Stiles moved the paper-scrap piles around until he uncovered the moon cycle print out.  He picked it up and shoved it in Derek’s face.  

“Look at this.  You see the circled part?  Right there?”  Stiles jabbed at the paper with his finger.  “That is tomorrow.  In case you forgot, that is the first time you go through a full moon as an alpha.  And we’ve got Jack the Werewolf Ripper out there gunning for you.”

“And you,” Derek said, swatting the paper away.  “I didn’t forget.”

“Ok, ok, ok.”  Stiles paced around the office, scrubbing his hands through his hair.  A sharp spike of nervousness was quickly replaced by the spice of his usual bravery.  He stopped pacing and met Derek’s eyes.  “Here’s the plan:  I have to be bait.”  

“No way, Stiles.”

“Yes way.  This dude has some kind of serial killer hard-on for people in stalled cars.  I am a person with a stalled car.”

“He wants you because he thinks you’re mine.”

“I’m--  He--  Oh.  Well, yeah, obviously?  Because I’ve been over here...”  Stiles forced his mouth to snap shut and stay that way.  There was no way in hell he was going to ask, “So, am I?”

“I think he was an alpha who... broke mentally during the change.”  Derek looked to where Stiles’ map hung.  “I don’t know why it happens, but I think all of the killings were him trying to make his own betas.  And now he’s after me and whatever he thinks is mine.”

Stiles swallowed hard.  “So, wait a minute here.  On top of the rest of this crap, are you telling me there’s a chance that you could go insane in a few hours?  Like real live wire, psycho killer and not just your usual moody grump fest?”  Broken Derek was a terrifying thought.  Way worse than Peter, if such a thing was imaginable.  “Thanks for mentioning the possibility, since in no way would it have been useful to our research to have, you know, _all of the information_.”

“We still have time.”

Stiles was so goddamn annoyed.  Even if this was a stupid ass idea, he was going to see it through just as punishment for Derek.  “I have to be bait, Derek.  You know it.”  Stiles couldn’t believe he was going to say this.  “You have to mark me.  Then he’ll find me faster, before the moon rises.  Maybe then we’ll _still have time_.”  He did finger quotes and put on a scowl that would rival Derek’s.

“Stiles--”

Stiles pulled off a shoe, tossing it aside.  Then a sock and his shirt.  “Come on, big guy.  This is the only way we’ve got.  I know it and you know it.  Don’t get modest now, Mr. I Barely Own a Shirt I’m So Shirtless Half the Time.”

Stiles felt his blush running across his upper chest, and it only made him blush harder.  A vicious, ketchup-colored cycle of blushing.  This was such a bad idea.  On so many levels, this was a bad idea.  What was he _thinking_?  He pulled off his other shoe and sock without looking back at Derek.

Derek’s hands closed around his arms, forcing him upright and turning him around.  “Stiles, if you get hurt--”

“You’re not getting it,” Stiles blurted out.  “I really _don’t_ want to get hurt, believe me.  But I’m not interested in seeing you dead either.  Or insane, if we manage to find a way to avoid that one too.  So here we are.  This is the plan.”

Derek made no move forward or back, so Stiles reached out and took the first step for both of them.  He unbuttoned Derek’s jeans.  This was terrifying and arousing and Stiles was faking every ounce of confidence here.  In that way, this was exactly like sex.  So at least Stiles was going to get to do something adjacent to the concept of sex before he died prematurely.  His knuckles brushed against the firm muscles of Derek’s lower stomach.  Stiles bit the inside of his cheek to hold back the shiver that threatened to shake him apart into a pile of hormonal dust.  The dick-related things about to happen were not exactly like Stiles had imagined.

“Stiles.”

“I’ll keep my eyes closed,” Stiles murmured, squeezing them shut and holding back another shiver.

The sound of Derek’s zipper was like a 747 landing in Stiles’ brain.  This was really going to happen.  He was letting a guy -- Derek freakin’ Hale of all people -- mark him.  Someone who, until about a week ago, he trusted about as far as he could throw him.  Derek didn’t even trust him enough to give him all the info on this shitstorm they were in.  And now Stiles was going to let Derek _piss_ on him.  Forget the terror he was repressing about being a worm on the hook for a psychotic werewolf.  Beyond a doubt, this was Stiles Stilinski letting someone claim him.  

The scariest part was that he wanted it so much he didn’t know what he would do when he felt the first warm, wet splash.  He’d spent the last few days jerking off so much to the thought of Derek’s cock he probably reeked of it.  But this was way more than disembodied fantasies of getting some.  Being pissed on was so beyond writing Stiles Hale on the front of his Trapper Keeper and drawing a heart around it… and then scribbling it out with great and furious vengeance before jerking off again.

“Hands,” Derek said softly, pulling at Stiles’ wrists.  

Stiles hadn’t realized that he had crossed his hands over his crotch.  Derek probably thought it was because he was scared.  He was scared, but not for the obvious reason.  It was more that he was the opposite of thrilled about having Derek see him get hard.  If he saw and pretended he hadn’t, that might be worse than being dismembered by a psycho werewolf with pack issues.  Stiles squeezed his eyes shut harder and let Derek move his hands aside.

Fingers slipped behind Stiles’ waistband and he sucked in an involuntary breath at how warm Derek’s hands were.  God, the mental picture of those fingers wrapped around Derek’s cock while he held...

A choked noise escaped Stiles’ throat.  He tried to cover it with a cough.  “Sorry.”

Even from behind closed eyelids in the dim room, Stiles could basically see Derek’s body in his space.  He was close to the side of Stiles’ neck, breathing as his fingers worked Stiles’ pants open.  A thrill ran through Stiles so hard he thought he'd black out for a second.

“Not like this,” Derek whispered in the smallest voice Stiles had ever heard from him.  He started pulling away and a nanosecond of nausea hit Stiles like a brick wall.  

Stiles’ eyes flew open and he grabbed Derek’s wrists.  “We are doing this,” Stiles hissed.  

Derek looked like he wanted to flee.  Stiles put Derek’s hands on his waist and then wiggled out of his pants.  He prayed for his dick to behave itself while he reached for Derek’s jeans to shove them down.

“We’re doing this,” Stiles said again, voice cracking.  Then he said something that he wasn't even sure _he_ was fully sold on yet.  “You're going to trust me, and god help me I'm going to trust you. You are going to mark me and then we’re going to take down that fucker before he kills anyone else.”  Stiles should have gone out for varsity cheerleading.

Derek nodded.  When he pulled off his shirt, Stiles was close to wishing for death instead of the torture that was Derek’s hardened nipples within reach.  This was not a tenable situation for someone in Stiles’ fragile, unfucked, hormone-saturated state.  The blackness behind his eyelids was marginally better.

He was sure he stank of fear... or at least confusion.  Probably also eagerness, which was why he was confused.  

The press of teeth to his neck -- gentle, but scary as fuck for all the same reasons -- was the last straw.  “Come on,” Stiles ordered.  “Do it.  I’m ready.  Oh, shit, I’m actually--”

Derek never even stepped away.  Hot air blew over the saliva he’d left on Stiles’ neck at the same time that a burst of hot urine wet the front of Stiles’ underwear.  He didn’t know what he expected.  Maybe that it was going to splash from a couple feet away on his lower legs.  Clinical and for a singular purpose.  But this was so not that.  This was Stiles suffocating on the intense smell of Derek.  This was him holding his breath when Derek’s fist brushed the front of his boxers as they clung wetly to his cock.  Rivulets of piss ran down Stiles’ legs, winding down in trails that wrapped around him like a rope.    

He wanted to look so bad.  He wanted to see the stream of piss hitting him, wanted to see it flowing back to Derek.  He wanted to see the puddle at their feet.  And he really freakin’ wanted to see the look on Derek’s face. But he’d said that he’d keep his eyes closed.  He’d offered that.  But need and warmth corkscrewed through him.  Stiles couldn’t hold back a shiver.  

Derek’s hand shifted between them.  His low growl felt like it was inside Stiles’ chest too. Too long fingernails pressed firmly at the back of Stiles’ neck as Derek grabbed him harder.  

“Fuck,” Stiles gasped.  He couldn’t keep his eyes shut any longer.  He needed to know if Derek was as affected by this as he was.

Red filled Stiles’ field of vision.  Derek’s eyes glowed with it.  His chest was heaving with panting breaths.

_Come on, Stiles.  Just reach out and grab him.  Reach down your underwear and jerk off with his scent all over you.  Let him know how much you want this._

But Derek was pushing away.  Turning and tucking himself away.  

Then Stiles just felt cold.

**** 

Derek hated almost everything about this plan.  

Mostly he hated that Stiles had kept his hands firmly at his sides while Derek had marked him.  He hated that Stiles’ face had been screwed up in disgust.  Everything inside Derek wanted Stiles to take his mark and revel in it.

The feel of his urine leaving his dick and wetting the front of Stiles’ shorts had almost been too much.  By the time he’d emptied himself, he was half hard and more than tempted to jerk off in the wake of the piss.  It was the alpha forcing his hand, and he shoved it back hard.  He leashed it even though it physically hurt to restrain that new part of himself.  Stiles didn’t deserve this.  He’d offered his trust, and despite himself, Derek trusted him too.  But Stiles shouldn’t have to risk himself when he wasn’t pack.

That thought didn’t sit right.

“I just thought of something,” Stiles said, interrupting Derek’s spiraling thoughts.  The top button of his jeans was still undone.  He ran his hand through his hair like he always did, and this time Derek nearly groaned with the way his scent swirled around Stiles.  “Do you think he meant he killed his own pack during his first full moon?  Or maybe that not having a pack as a new alpha is what makes you go crazy?”

“What,” Derek asked flatly.  

“I mean, I think you had it right about the betas.  Those highway murders were him trying to make a pack and failing.”  Realization dawned on Stiles’ face as he met Derek’s eyes.  “Shit. Derek.”

Emptiness ran over Derek like a cold wind.  All of the Hales were dead.  What did that mean for him?  

****

Stiles leaned under the hood of his Jeep with a little flashlight between his lips.  Nominally it was pointed at the battery, but mostly it just showed Stiles how much his hands were shaking.  He shifted foot-to-foot.  His underwear were still stuck to his cock, the moisture making him shiver now that it’d cooled inside his jeans.

But he was bait.  His urine-soaked underwear was bait for a demented werewolf serial killer.    And Derek was stalking somewhere downwind, hopefully staying fully sane and within distance to intervene before Stiles got turned into bloody confetti.  

Having second thoughts about a stupid plan way past the point of no return:  Typical.  If he made out of this alive, he was going to masturbate for an entire day, and then sleep for an entire other one.

Stiles jerked when a strangled, feral howl pierced the night.  He worked extremely hard at not running away.  Even this dude's howl sounded messed up.  Add that to his stench and his creeptastic creepery from earlier…  Stiles’ body tensed, bracing for the worst, expecting pain. _Here it comes_ \--

He barely had time to blink before a clawed hand was dragging him to the side of his car.  The flashlight fell to the ground and rolled underneath the Jeep.  

The werewolf's nose was too hot when it shoved against Stiles' neck, snuffling against his skin in a way that made Stiles feel seriously violated.  

"I don't let the humans I want have the chance to say no."  Offensively hot breath washed over Stiles.  Spit splattered across his cheek.  "And you smell so much better than any of the others.  You smell like you're owned by a wolf already."

And then he was gone with a slash of cutting pain along Stiles neck.  

"Run," Derek growled putting himself between Stiles and the flailing omega.  "Now!"

The omega grabbed for Stiles and Derek threw him to the ground with an impressive show of fangs.  Two pairs of red eyes gleamed in the semi-darkness.  The flashlight made everything into a confusing, kinetic tangle of flying fists.  Stinging blood leaked down onto Stiles' collar.   

"I will have him," the werewolf yelled, shoving Derek brutally aside and lunging for Stiles.  

Stiles fell backward, pushing backward through the gravel on his ass.  Claws tore a gash through the ankle of Stiles’ jeans as he snatched his legs away.

The air sang with the speed of Derek’s claws slicing through it.  The omega screeched with pain and shoved Derek away.  Derek’s body thudded against the ground with a sickening crunch, and that was when Stiles got mad.  Rage burned through him like a road flare.  His hands balled into fists.  Fear and stupid loyalty kept his feet frozen in place even as the omega charged him.   

"Stiles, I said _run_!"  

Derek’s claws tore into the man’s back as he yanked him away from Stiles.  Their eyes met.  The softened red in Derek's unfroze Stiles' feet.  He stumbled backward, raking his arm across the front of his Jeep.  The pain was dull, though, deadened by the snarling fight right in front of him.  

“Want him!”  The omega’s words -- laced with desperation and need -- tore a gaping hole in Stiles’ remaining bravery.  

And then Derek roared.  That was what made Stiles finally turn and run.  Self-preservation battled with his instinct to find a huge ass stick and beat that other werewolf into a pulp.  Logic prevailed though, since Derek healed faster than Stiles did.  Plus he had those muscles.  And fangs.  Stiles came equipped with a sharp wit and biting sarcasm.  Not so useful in this specific scenario, so he ran.  

The hill between here and Derek’s house never seemed big.  Now it was freakin’ Mount Everest, and Stiles was short a sherpa.  Tree roots leapt up to grab his ankles and branches slapped him in the face like they were actively working for the enemy.  But the sounds of the fight behind him were terrifying -- snapping teeth, tearing and wet -- and then the worst thing short of death happened.  Derek howled in pain.  Fear shot through Stiles until every inch of him was burning and frozen at the same time, but the omega was thundering up the hill toward him.

 _Shit_.  Stiles wasn’t sure if he’d said it out loud or if he’d just cursed in his head.  Either way, he barely heard himself over the racket of his blood pumping through his ears.  For a brief second, he thought to thank his lord and savior, Coach Finstock, for making them do wind sprints until they vomited.  Because right about now Coach yelling for him to “run like his life depended on it” was a reality.  

Stiles tripped up the porch stairs.  Slivers planted themselves deep under the skin of his palms as his hands skidded across the wood.  Bright shocks of pain shot up his forearm.  He scrabbled to the door and threw it open blindly, tumbling inside... and immediately through a gaping hole in the rotting floor.  

Death would have been preferable.  Air ceased to exist.  Stiles twisted painfully on the floor of the basement trying to breathe.  Above him, red eyes looked down.  Saliva dripped from the omega’s sneering mouth in fat splotches across Stiles’ torn shirt.  This was it.  Stiles was about to black out from lack of oxygen and then die a virgin at the hands of a stinky, psychopathic werewolf.  Fantastic.  

Derek crashed onto the omega, propelling him away from the hole’s edge.  The noises of the fight sounded so far away.  Dust slowly rained down on Stiles, into his open, fruitlessly gaping mouth.  A little late now, but he was seriously thinking this whole thing was a major tactical error.  If Derek died in this house because of Stiles’ stupid plan, he’d never forgive himself in the three minutes before the omega killed him too.  

That was when Derek grunted in pain.  Above Stiles' head, he thudded to the floor with an aborted whimper.

"No," Stiles managed with his first breath.  He willed his lungs to cooperate.  He forced through the pain of each breath and made himself get up.  In the dark, he felt around, searching for something to use as a weapon.  Anything.   _Please_.

His hand closed around smooth wood in the darkness.  He yanked and it sprung free from a pile of burned shrapnel.  

****

Blood coursed down Derek’s face, blurring his vision.  But there was Stiles, feet wide in a batter’s stance, the bat Derek’s dad had made him in hand.  There was enough time for Derek to feel a crackle of power in the moment before the bat connected with the omega’s head.  

Derek finished the job with a slash of his claws, not that different from how Peter had met his end.  

And then, looking at Stiles’ surprised, triumphant smile, Derek blacked out.

****

“Oh, god.  Oh, shit.  Derek!”  

Stiles pulled aside the torn and bloody remains of Derek’s shirt.  Gashes went deep across his chest.  He was breathing shallowly and way too fast.  

“Shit, shit, shit.  Ok, we gotta get you up.”

Stiles pushed his arm under Derek’s neck and shoulders and shoved him to a sitting position.  No response from Derek, just a lolling head.  Stiles felt like panicking.  Adrenaline pumped through him until his head felt like it was going to geyser off his neck.  He jammed his hands under Derek’s armpits and _dragged_.

“Why are you so heavy?”  Stiles shoved him inside the back seat of the Camaro.  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.  Keys.  Where…?”

Of course.  The lump of denim-encased keys was basically making sweet, sweet love to the other, considerably larger bulge of denim in Derek’s jeans.  Stiles thought briefly about pussyfooting around the issue, but screw that.  Derek’s piss was still all over Stiles’ dick, so boundaries were fully broken.  There was no way that Derek was going to resuscitate and kill him for this minor infraction.  He shoved his hand down Derek’s front pocket with no further consideration… until Derek moaned.  Stiles was inexperienced, yes, but that was not a sexy moan.  It was a _hurry up I’m dying_ moan.

“I’m trying, big guy.  I’m _trying_.”  

He fished them out, debating whether for practical purposes he should tell Derek to start wearing looser pants.  One turn of the key and then a second gave a weak chug of the engine.  

“Come _on_ ,” Stiles whined.  “Come on, baby.  I know you’re not my car, but just… the bad werewolf is dead and now you gotta get us out of here.”  He turned the key again, jamming his foot on the gas.  The engine squealed as it turned over. 

Stiles gave one last look at the dead omega on the porch and got them the hell out of there.  

****

Derek came to, cold and confused, under the spray of Stiles’ shower.  

“Thank fuck,” Stiles sighed, crouched over him in the tub.  

Stiles was soaked.  Water dripped down off his nose.  His shirt was clinging to him.  Derek fisted his hand into it and pulled himself up to sitting.  

“Is he dead?”

“Yeah,” Stiles smiled with relief.  “Between you going all Super Alpha on him and that bat I found in the basement, the wicked wolf is most sincerely dead.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Me?  Forget about me.  You look like you’ve been through a wood chipper.”

“I’ll heal.”   

Derek pulled up Stiles’ shirt, turned his head side to side, squeezed his thighs to see if he’d flinch with pain.  

“I’m fine.  Derek, I’m fine.  He mostly didn’t get anywhere near me.”  Stiles took hold of Derek’s chin and turned his face toward his own.  "I'm fine."

“Get up,” Derek growled.  He needed to check.  Every inch of Stiles better be unmarked.

Water streamed over them as Derek pulled off Stiles’ shirt.  He grabbed front of Stiles’ waistband and yanked.  The metal button flew off and the zipper tore open.

“Those are my favorite jeans.”

"You're the one that wore them to a hunt."

Derek’s hands flew over Stiles, pushing him and yanking him.  A thin scratch ran across the back of Stiles’ neck.  Double lines of scored flesh rose over his ankle bone.  Bruises were rising across his back and arms.  A gouge of skin was missing from his forearm.

Stiles kept shushing him, long fingers stroking along Derek’s hair and arms even as Derek manhandled him.  He just took the abuse.  Derek pulled his hands away abruptly.

“Why are you letting me do this?”

Stiles’ eyes went wide and his hands dropped too.  

Derek pushed, knowing that his voice sounded accusatory.  "How did you do that with my bat?"

Stiles shrugged.  "Tee ball practice when I was 6?"

"No, I mean the..." Derek sought for the right word.  "The _spark_ when you swung it."

"Dude, I have no idea what you're talking about.  The omega was going to kill you so I grabbed the first thing I found and hit him as hard as I could.  Why aren't we talking about you not going crazy yet."

Derek wiped the water out of his eyes and looked out the small window over the tub.  The full moon was high in the sky and Derek felt fine.  Possibly better than fine.  Totally anchored.  His wolf had settled into a comfortable place within him.  He searched Stiles’ face, and suddenly the pieces finally fit.  

"Oh," Derek said.    

"You look like someone force-fed you a pickle, dude.  What's wrong?  Is it the moon?  Oh, no no no _no_.  If you could not choose my shower as a place to lose your mind--"

"I'm fine."

"But the whole no pack thing," Stiles said.  

His amber eyes swept over Derek's face, and Derek didn’t know how the hell this had happened.  Tolerating each other had turned into trusting each other, saving each other’s lives.  It felt right.  Warm water sprayed around them, washing away blood and dirt.  It all felt good, and he let himself give Stiles a cautious smile.  

And then his nostrils were flooded with a pulse of that familiar, storming scent.  Stiles’ eyes went huge.  "Oh.   _Oh_.  Me?"

"Apparently."

"Hey with the tone, like becoming pack was somehow my idea."

"Actually it sort of was."

"How do you figure that?"

"You're the one who told me to mark a circle around my house."

Stiles gulped visibly.  "So, you did that?"

"And you let me mark you."

Heat rose to Stiles face.  "Is there any way that this conversation could veer away from things that make me think about your cock?  Now that I'm your pack -- which, holy shit, weird and/or cool -- you probably won't kill me.  But I'd also like to avoid any kind of punitive maiming."

Stiles' face was a confusing sea of expressions.  Derek leaned close to his wet skin and inhaled, trying to get a read on whether Stiles was dreading this or the opposite.  

Heat and spice preceded Stiles’ croak.  "Can you _not_?”  But his hands were bunched in the shreds of Derek’s t-shirt, punching feebly at his chest in a way that felt more like a caress.  “Especially in here.  I have to usually be naked in this room.  My bathroom, my rules... right?"

“Can I not what?” Derek rumbled, pulling back with one last breath in.

Stiles looked like he was on the verge of blowing a gasket.  “Are you serious about doing the pissing thing?  With the circle?  You really did that?”

Derek nodded slowly.  Stiles let go of him and turned to put his forehead against the tile.  His eyes were squeezed shut hard.  Ribbons of water trailed down his back.

“What do I smell like?”  Stiles' voice was small.

“Usually?  Like a mess.”

Stiles snorted.

“Not an unpleasant one,” Derek clarified.  “Just, confusing.  It’s hard to tell what you’re thinking from just scent.  You have too many thoughts.”

“Dude, you have no idea.”  Stiles rolled his face toward Derek.  Now his cheek was pressed against the wall.  He opened his eyes.  “How about now?  What do I smell like?”

“Now you smell like…”  He still didn’t know exactly what Stiles’ scent meant.  There was too much invested to get this wrong.

Stiles’ hand moved slowly until he was cupping himself through the ruined fly of his jeans.  “Do I smell like you?”  His fist closed tighter and tighter around the bulge in his underwear.

Derek wanted to whine deep in his chest with how much he needed Stiles to really mean what it looked like he meant.  

“Say something,” Stiles ordered.  

“Tell me what happened earlier was ok.”

“The almost dying part, not ok.  The pissing part… Yeah, so, I want to watch next time.”

“Next time,” Derek rasped.  His mouth had gone dry.

“Yes?”

Derek wanted to ask, “Now?”  But his throat wouldn’t make the sound.  He formed himself to Stiles' back instead and breathed him in.  He curled his hands around Stiles’ hips, feeling the sharp angles of his body.  The alpha within him rumbled, telling him _yes, now_.  He crouched down behind Stiles in the narrow tub, running his nose down the length of Stiles’ spine.  Stiles’ hand flexed and moved between his body and the wall; his gasp said everything.  Stiles wanted this too.  Derek drew in a long inhale of his scent from the curve of Stiles’ back, heady with the lingering mixture of their scents low on his body.  

“Turn around,” Derek rasped.

“Ohfuckohfuckohfuck,” Stiles chanted quietly.  

And then Stiles’ fist and urine-soaked underwear were inches from Derek’s nose.  The shower was washing it away, but it was unmistakably Derek’s mark under Stiles’ hand.  

“Can I--”  Derek hoped the answer was yes, because he had his nose buried alongside Stiles’ fingers in the next instant.  He rutted his face against the fabric.  He gripped Stiles’ ass with both hands and pressed in harder.

“Fuck, Derek, I don’t know what you…  Is this a pack thing?  Or, like, a Stiles in particular thing?  What am I allowed to do here?  Because I swear if I have to stand here like this while you--”  A strangled noise came from Stiles’ throat.  “You will be sans pack again, because I’ll actually die.”

Derek stood, pressing his hardening cock along the line of Stiles’ knuckles.  “You looked disgusted earlier when I--”

Stiles let out a loud, indignant laugh.  “The opposite of disgusted.  I was thoroughly gusted.  It took every ounce of willpower to not reach my hand in and jerk off.”

He couldn’t hold back the growl this time.  “Do it now.”

“Oh god, what?  Are you serious?”  

Derek dragged his lips over Stiles’ slack mouth, breathing in his exhales.  His hips moved involuntarily, coaxing Stiles’ hand to move.  He licked into Stiles’ mouth.  Eager nips and wet tongue met him in return.  Each knuckle of Stiles’ fist was killing him where they separated his cock from Stiles’.

“Fuck yes I will,” Stiles mumbled against Derek’s mouth, and his fist was moving between them.  

Derek was on his knees again before he knew what he was doing.  His hands flew to the shower knobs, turning off the water so he could hear and smell every stroke of Stiles’ fist.  The wet cloth stuck to Stiles’ fingers, but from this close Derek could clearly see the head of Stiles’ cock through the half-transparent fabric.  He looked up at Stiles and ran his tongue along his underwear.  Musk washed over his tastebuds.  Stiles looked down at him with those slack, pink lips open and panting.  Derek wanted to kiss this flavor into his mouth so he could know how pack smelled, how it tasted, that it was everything.

“How are you real?”  Stiles moved his hand faster.  “Oh fuck, can I watch… now?  Can you?  On me?”

“The things I’m going to do to you,” Derek growled, unable to hold back the flood of need and emotion.  

Standing, he pushed his wet jeans to his knees.  Bared to Stiles’ hungry gaze, Derek’s cock twitched hard in his palm.  He breathed deeply, slowly and then let his muscles relax into the release.  

Yellow spilled over the front of Stiles’ underwear again, but this time Stiles was pushing them down.  He was jerking off to the feel of Derek marking him.  Derek crowded closer until Stiles’ strokes were moving along Derek’s cock while he pissed.  Stiles arched forward, capturing Derek’s mouth with his own, gasping air in around his touch.

“I can’t--”  Stiles was coming across Derek’s curled fingers until he slumped against the wall.

Derek’s cock ached at the sight of him.  Rumpled and wet and inexplicably _pack_.  Stiles slid to the floor of the tub, tangled in his jeans and still blissful in the wake of his orgasm.  His lips were open and so red.

“Don’t shut your mouth.”

Derek slid the thumb of his free hand over Stiles’ lips and then pushed inside.  Stiles’ eyelids drooped as his mouth closed around Derek’s finger and sucked like he couldn’t help himself.  Fuck knows Derek couldn’t have stopped himself either.  He coaxed Stiles’ jaw open again with a press down upon his tongue.  Silently he pushed his cock in alongside his thumb, and Stiles groaned around the stretch.  The tang of Derek’s piss had to still be on the head of his dick, but Stiles took him down along the flat of his tongue with a swallow, like he would taste every inch of Derek.

****

Stiles’ phone beeped.  Derek was too warm and Stiles was too boneless from dick-related things for him to really care if he ever answered his phone again.

“Stiles, get the goddamn phone so we can go back to sleep,” Derek rumbled.  

Stiles whined, “Fine, but I expect payment in more sex later.”  The bed creaked when Stiles leaned out.  He pawed at the pile of their mingled clothes on the floor until he found his phone.  “Any scenario where I ask my dad for a bigger bed ends badly for us, you know this, right?  Oh, for fuck's sake.  You are not going to fucking believe this.” 

Stiles shoved the phone in Derek’s face.

 _from: Scott McCall_  
>> Hey.  Finally had a second to send these.    
>> Found them last week, but got distracted. ;P  
>> Something about alphas and packs and going crazy.  
>> Helpful?

Derek shrugged.  “It’s better that we figured it out on our own.”

“So you say now, that we managed to not get dead in the process of figuring it out.  Those are some seriously rose-colored alpha eyes you’ve got there.”

Derek shrugged again.  “Now that we know what we’re doing, we can be the ones that never emerge from the sex fog.”

Stiles laughed and tossed his phone over his shoulder, burying his nose against Derek’s neck.  “Race you to the shower, big guy.”


End file.
